“At nearly 80 years old, I find I am considerably more open and flexible now than people 10 or 20 years younger than I. I thank the genetic or cultural influences that have given me this openness,” says Michael Tilson Thomas, speaking from his home in San Francisco as his big birthday approaches in December.
For somebody who has always seemed eternally young in spirit, the very idea of reaching such an august age seems improbable. This is the musician who was a conductor at 19, first directed the London Symphony Orchestra at 26 and in 1987 co-founded the New World Symphony orchestra to help launch the careers of young musicians. It could be said that when Leonard Bernstein died in 1990, Tilson Thomas inherited his mantle, a truly American conductor in his open-hearted embrace of all kinds of music and ability to enthuse listeners just as much when he talks about music as when he conducts it. His 25-year tenure as music director of the San Francisco Symphony, from 1995 to 2020, marked the high point of his career and raised the reputation of music on the West Coast to vie with its historic East Coast rivals.
A decade ago, Tilson Thomas — known throughout the music business as MTT — marked his 70th birthday with a concert at Buckingham Palace for Queen Elizabeth II. Whether anything as exalted as that has been planned for his 80th has not been revealed, but there is already plenty going on.
Following successful concerts with the New York Philharmonic last month, he returns on October 20 to the LSO for Mahler’s resplendent Symphony No.2. In a tribute to MTT the composer, a four-disc set of his own music was released earlier this month. Splendidly produced, with notes that he has written himself and photos from throughout his career, it makes for a handsome early birthday present. The announcement of a Gramophone Lifetime Achievement Award earlier this month will have been the icing on the cake.
Michael Tilson Thomas with his mentor Leonard Bernstein in Danbury, Connecticut, 1974 © ArenaPAL
All this is the more remarkable because, three years ago, MTT was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. The outlook following this diagnosis is rarely good, with life expectancy usually estimated at about 12 to 18 months, but within the year he was back, conducting concerts again.
Not everything since then has gone smoothly. Some concerts have been cancelled and a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No.3 in London earlier this year, though of high quality, was briefly interrupted when jet lag caused him confusion. He has said there are times when he has felt “more exhausted, more on edge physically” since his illness, but the rewards of working clearly outweigh that.
“Why have I kept on doing this?” he says. “It really is about relationships. It is nice when the public like [what we do], or the critics write good things about it, but what keeps me going is the connections I have with the bands. It is about sharing our love and admiration for great music and helping each other to explore. If I can offer something to players who have performed this music so many times before, and they say, ‘that’s interesting’, or they have made it their own so that it feels new and alive, that is wonderful. That is the reward.”
He cites the recent concerts with the New York Philharmonic. He has known principal trumpet Christopher Martin since the musician was on a young artist programme; just “a little talk” about the soul-stirring solo that opens Mahler’s Symphony No.5 was enough to settle how it should go. “I have a certain vision of those opening bars in a cinematic sort of way,” says MTT, “and from the moment he started playing, it was commanding, but also, at the right moments, so vulnerable and touching. I appreciate how intensive the schedules of these orchestras are, but they have so much to impart to us.”
Anybody who has witnessed the long years of his association with the LSO or San Francisco Symphony will recall the wide range of music he played. There is no place for musical snobbery when MTT is in charge. He has recorded everything from Elvis Costello to John Cage, Mahler to John McLaughlin, Respighi to Ruggles.
A disgruntled audience member once wrote in to complain about the inclusion of a piece by Italian modernist Giacinto Scelsi. MTT says he wrote back: “I try to think of myself as captain of a ship who is looking through binoculars and sees an island teeming with flora and fauna that have never been described in any encyclopedia. If you were a passenger on that voyage, wouldn’t it be better to tell your friends you have seen such animals and plants, and dine out on that, rather than the good deal you negotiated on some Hermès scarf?”
With Audrey Hepburn in 1989, during their collaboration on ‘From the Diary of Anne Frank’ © Todd Levy
The same open-minded spirit of adventure can be found in MTT’s own music. The new collection, entitled Grace, brings together recordings of the bulk of his major works in one place for the first time. Following in the steps of Bernstein, his mentor, these offer a widescreen panorama, ranging from let-your-hair-down cabaret numbers to the most serious of song cycles.
In From the Diary of Anne Frank, commissioned by Audrey Hepburn in 1989, the texts are spoken rather than sung. MTT says he fell in love with Hepburn’s personality, “so captivating and generous”. Although she felt she could never play Anne Frank, she said reading extracts from her diary was a possibility, and this moving recitation, performed on the recording by Isabel Leonard, was the result.
One of the earliest works in the compendium is “Street Song”, composed in 1988 for brass ensemble, an intriguing mixture of gamelan sounds and 17th-century Venetian polyphony. “I have never written about the inspiration for this piece,” MTT says. “It came from my personal experience as I tried to get to grips with being in love for the first time.” (Tilson Thomas married his long-term partner Joshua Robison in 2014.)
“Music allows me to share things that might be too embarrassing to speak about. Young musicians have come to me to play this piece and I know from conversations with them that they understand what it is about, even though they know nothing of my personal experience. That is the miracle of music to me.”
‘Grace’ is available on Pentatone, with all net proceeds donated to brain cancer research, pentatonemusic.com. Tilson Thomas will conduct the LSO at the Barbican, London, on October 20 and 23, lso.co.uk
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source link